Net loss of housing to wealthy incomers

Southwold, Suffolk: ‘the district council is considering letting as a holiday home one of the few precious remaining council houses.’
Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

The government should help families like the Earles by keeping rents affordable (Priced out: ‘We had to choose: eat dinner or stay warm’, 22 April). Instead it actively makes their situation worse. On Arran and in other desirable rural areas there is a housing crisis driven by wealthy professionals who want the perfect place to retire. Wealthy professionals can only be attracted to a location if broadband coverage is adequate. To ensure this, the government imposes a universal service obligation on broadband suppliers to subsidise fast connections in rural locations, financed by subscription income from broadband users nationally. The improved infrastructure clears the way for landlords to expel poorer tenants to make way for the influx of wealthy outsiders.David CooperNewbury, Berkshire

• Re James Prestwich’s letter (20 April): the Attlee government made provision in the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 for building plots to be sold at their agricultural value and for the difference between that and their value as building land to be paid to the Treasury. The act didn’t make that compulsory, however, so it didn’t work very well. In any case, as soon as the Tories got back into power, they repealed it.John AbbottLondon